15 OctEpisode 83 | Three funny things and one terrible thing just happened

Alternative titles Annie thought of for this episode:
-Toddlers are hilarious and death sucks
-And the dog dies in the end

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Transcript

 

Annie:

 

So, I think I'm posting this as a bonus episode because I already have an episode ready to go for tomorrow.

 

But a couple of things happened in the last 24 hours I wanted to share three are silly and just funny. One isn't. 

 

So like the first three things are all funny mom/dog training-related things. 

 

My friend, Lori, sent me a text message, well she sent it to this mom group that I'm in on WhatsApp. She's been trying to wean him at night, wean him, so he won’t nurse at night.

 

Actually, her son is one day older than Magnolia. 

 

So she wrote, Elliot is obsessed with morning and the sun because I told him we nurse in the morning when the sun comes up but not at night. So now, any old time, he says, “morning, sun, nursing, nursing.” And outside, he will suddenly point at this sky and say, “Sun, nursing, boobs.”

 

So he's making long speeches where the only recognizable words are “sun,” “boob,” “nursing, “morning.”

 

Just thought it was a funny example of classical conditioning, how he has this need to nurse now when he sees the sun. It’s kind of funny.

 

Oh then I was thinking about it, a lot of animals must associate signs of morning with, “hey, its time to eat,” “hey, mom- person, feed me.”

 

One of the other funny things have happened was I got a new like pop socket for my phone to hold on in the back and the pop socket thing comes on this piece of cardboard that's kind of like the size and shape of a phone, and she grabbed onto this thing, and has been using it as a phone for the last couple days. And one of the very first things she did was to hold it up to her toy dog as if she was showing her dog to someone. 

 

And I sent it to Alix Kris, head of marketing, she wrote back, “dog momager in the making,” which I thought was pretty funny.

She doesn't have a lot of words yet but one word she does have is “shoes,” which she says, “oohg”. And she's always talking about “oohg”, and whenever we're on the phone with her with her grandparents or whoever, and we try and get her to say the words, her big word right now which is shoes. You know, we ask her to say it when she's doing Facetime so as she was holding up the phone to her toy dog, she was holding it in front of him and saying, “oohg, oohg.”

 

I put it up on my Instagram and stories, made me laugh.

 

And then the other thing that made me laugh so hard and Jason wasn't around, it was just me so I couldn't even share it with anyone but I was like cracking up, it seemed so funny to me. 

 

But Magnolia went on the potty which was super exciting and doesn't really happen very much. And actually I think she may be like, had a poop clinging to her butt so when I put her on the potty it just fell and I'm not convinced she actually like pushed one out, but whatever happened, she put her little naked tush on the potty. She stood up, there was a turd in there and I, you know, threw a parade, I was so excited and happy for her. And as I was like, cheering her on and telling her that she's the best ever and like, showing her the poopy, A mess came over and, like before I could stop him, stuck his head in the potty and ate the poop. And she thought this was like the best thing ever. So what was hilarious about it, was of course it was like what is going to be the most rewarding thing to Magnolia to reinforce this behavior is giving the dog treats. And here she just actually figured out how to produce a treat from her butt. 

Not a behavior that I want to encourage on the dog’s part, for sure, but the kind of fully closed loop of the behavior of pottying being reinforced by the opportunity to give your beloved dog, an internally-created treat.

 

I've been laughing about it to myself for the last day or so, so I needed to share. 

 

And I've also needed to laugh because the last thing I wanted to share in this kind of impromptu way while I was hanging out in the park with Magnolia and got the phone call from Dr. Sally Haddock at St Marks vet letting me know that my dog is dying. He seems to have an inoperable mass in his liver. And it sounds like there's not much that she suggests that we do. 

 

He's 15 and a half and he's been- I've just noticed things have been a little weird with him in the last couple months. And of course I'm like kicking myself now like, “oh, if only I brought him in sooner and you know at this point, it's inoperable”  but I'm feeling a lot of like…dealing with that part of it which I think is normal.

 

And also, just I mean, just trying to focus on the feeling what it’s going to mean to lose this animal who has been.. it's the longest strictly good relationship I've ever had with anyone.  I got him when I was 25. I just turned 40. I remember thinking when I got him, like, “wow, I could have this dog till I’m 40” and trying to imagine what that would look like.

 

He's been an amazing buddy on this journey. I feel really glad that we've been able to share some many good times together. He's taught me so much, I feel like that sounds cheesy but it's true. I mean, I feel like so much of what I know about dogs in general, comes from what I know about one dog, specifically. One dog who I just know very, very well.

 

Anyway, I think we will be able to… he seems you know actually pretty okay. He's certainly in good spirits, he and Magnolia are insanely cute together. And I feel lucky that their time in their lives as overlapped.

 

Anyway, there's a lot to process here, and it's still very new and raw, but supposed to do a Q and A webinar at 4pm, which you can sign up for at schoolforthedogs.com/qanda and if you're listening to this in the future, if you go to that link. The next one will be there.

 

And anyway, I am going to try and like throw some cold water on my face to look less bad but I might need to wear sunglasses or something because… you know I have been crying and I just felt like I needed to somehow like put this into the world in like podcast form before saying anything during this Q&A which I mean maybe, maybe I won't say anything, there's plenty of other things in the world to talk about.

 

If I start crying, I guess I will have to say something.

 

Anyway, more to come on my last days with my wonderful dog. I don't know how he long has and it’s possible I  haven't even talked about him enough on this podcast.

 

Alright. Thanks for listening, and maybe I'll see you the Q&A.